Still learning the ins & outs of Bluetooth? Or are you a BLE wiz who always appreciates a good primer on the tech? Gene Fabron has written a 101 guide for Tom’s Hardware that talks everything from the stack and manufacturing techniques to the history and partners that move the Bluetooth market forward. It’s a fun read.
In the tenth century, the Viking king Harald Blåtand (Harald Bluetooth in English) united large swathes of modern-day Norway and Denmark under his rule. Fast-forward to 1994, when Ericsson’s R&D teams started investigating ways to connect computers and the “smartphones” of the day without cables. In 1997, Jim Kardach proposed the name “Bluetooth” for the new technology that would unify communications protocols like King Harald had united Scandinavia.
A Bluetooth profile is a set of pre-determined capabilities and a customized stack, determined by the type of operation intended. Profiles make it much easier to design for, implement and manage the very wide variety of Bluetooth operations needed for an application.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
